


El Día de Muertos

by CherryChimes



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Backstory, Blood, Death, Gen, Gore, Headcanon, Major Original Character(s), OC, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:18:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryChimes/pseuds/CherryChimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things are better left unremembered, unspoken, and unlived.<br/>  Surely there are things you would like to forget too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	El Día de Muertos

The faint, crisp clear air was what had greeted Mantos that morning. There were birds singing their delicate songs, there were the faint calls and honks of that of the seafowl- and there was the gentle noise of waves lapping upon the shore as a warm tropical wind caressed his cheeks and shifted his hair about his face. Leaning against the beautiful palm wood of the hut that was the entryway to his underseas hive, Mantos took in a deep, peaceful breath, sighing contentedly as his skin soaked up the summer sun. He swore- if it was possible- that his already pale grey skin could possibly gain a glorious tan if he stayed out here long enough. He did- falling asleep with his head lolling to the side on bare shoulders as he waited for a client.

The client showed up a good couple hours later, enough for the younger seadweller to have achieved the status of having a painfully sunburnt scalp and cheeks. He rubbed his eyes and winced as Evangelion nudged his side until he awoke, blinking his violet orbs open to note that the fellow whom he had been commissioned to tattoo had just docked on his island, and was currently waving at him. He waved back faintly, before blinking a few times with a faint smile, holding open the door to his hive.

“After you.”

“¡Ah, gracias señor!”

“….Right.”

Stepping down the many flights of stairs- and the many floors that made up the wide expanse of Mantos’ home, the duo chatted about meaningless things- how wonderful the weather was, how peaceful the island hive always seemed, the gorgeous coral reefs out the windows, how much money he was making off of paintings Danari did not know about, where his inspiration came from and the like. Until, of course, they reached the studio, the explosion of mismatched colors and open cans of paint sending a faintly reeling scent wafting into their noses and leaving the guest’s own a twitching throwing off a vibe of very clearly ‘unorganized disaster’, and yet it was somehow beautiful.

“Take a seat,” Mantos began, “And I will get started right away. You said you wanted the Muerto skulls upon your face in a mask like manner, yes?”

“Sí, señor. I wish to be able to celebrate el día de muertos and honor my ancestor whenever I wish to.”

“….I sort of understood most of that. But I think I get where you’re going.”

“Good!”

The client sat idly upon Mantos’ so claimed “operating table” that he used both as an easel on canvas and as an easel for alternian flesh. He ducked down to his cabinets, one after the other after the other, until in his fingers he held a few careful needles, and a good few containers of many different festive dyes- especially white, for the color of bone. Clicking his tongue, Mantos set about to work, carefully rubbing in a numbing dye to the older troll’s face where he knew work would be most delicate, before taking a very thin pen and stenciling out where the intricate designs of a festive skull would go.

It did not take him long to do as such, continuing with his very idle chatter all the while, before he paused, dipping a couple of the needles into the black dye, before readying to slip it just under the skin.

“Are you ready, sir?”

“Sí, do it when you’re ready.”

Mantos hummed faintly in assonance, before gently pushing the needle in, threading it back out and leaving a spot of white ink behind, carefully placed to look clean and subtle. The pattern kept up for a good few hours, poke after poke after poke, speck of dye turning into an outline, turning into a form of a morbid beauty. Considering it was a face operation (And Mantos did not have anesthetics) both trolls had fallen silent, one so his jaw would not move and destroy the job, the other lost in intense concentration, far too busy to carry on more than a few words beyond “Is this okay?” or “Do I need to apply more gel?”

So Mantos thought it was weird when he heard a faint faint whistling while he was putting a vibrant gold-orange into the man’s jaw. He couldn’t feel any vibrations coming from his throat- nor was his adam’s apple bobbing, or his jaw moving. The troll seemed to notice it too, glancing at the seadweller dubiously from the corner of his eye- obviously curious at the noise. Could the job be that good- or that bad?

And so neither troll expected it when the whistling noise suddenly turned ominous, followed by the room going entirely dark, even with the sunlit water outside the window. Mantos’ eyes widened in sudden realization, before he shouted “Take cover!” though it was already a good deal far too late. The bomb had already struck, the hive quaking like a newborn lusus, Mantos could feel just from that that the entire top of the hive and most of the island was surely gone. He himself had gone flying sideways in the crash, cracking his head against the work table. And with a sharp cry of pain, he could feel the intense burning of his horn as what had to be a particularly thick needle crashed through his horn, dangerously close to his head, with a vicious snap, rending a hole all the way through it. A hand on the screamingly aching bone-cartilage, the boy looked around in fear for his client- nowhere to be seen.

And a moment later the roaring started too. Another bomb struck the hive- another handful of hive gone- and then he could feel the sudden momentum shift as his hive careened sideways, and he could see the coral suddenly rise up like closing teeth about the window of the studio, clamping down in a grip that surely meant his sudden death. And then there was suddenly his client, impaled upon one of the spikes of coral crashing through the thick aquarium glass, eyes blank, head thrown back with jaws snapped wide open with fear in a final expression of true terror and death, only accentuated by the intricate paintings of art that in itself was the celebration of such a thing and the lives that came from it- and had gone with it. Mantos nearly threw up.

So badly was he quaking in fear and pain, thrown against one of the coral teeth as water came crashing into the hive from all sides; from the broken windows it came; from the bay door, from the walls, from upstairs, and from under his feet. He was nearly submerged when the third bomb hit.

It was a strange experience, having one’s flesh nearly seared entirely off of the body. The pressure hit him first- a sort of detached shove that knocked his head sharply once again against the coral. And then his chest and shoulder felt strangely warm, as if he’d set a cup of tea on himself whilst laying down. And then it went numb- and as soon as he dazedly registered that he had fallen completely underwater, he screamed. He screamed and screamed himself hoarse in intense, utter pain, clutching onto his shoulder and shaking and shivering, even as he felt his own blood drift from his fingers- even as he felt the intense flame of the bomb cauterize the wound and boil the water he was in, searing at his eyes, at his nose, burning his fins until they numbed from pain. 

As he was blacking out, vision fading in and out, fuzzy and clear…. fuzzy and clear, the last thing he registered was a grotesque bloated face grinning at him, a dead one of a myriad of colors, a grim reaper alive, celebrating his death and asking him to come dance.

The first thing he would see upon awakening would be the sky turned a dark ruddy grey with dust. The second would be when he sat up, gingerly rubbing his face. The third, that his vision was still blurry- and the fourth would be a giant landta ray panicking, tearing through the sand back and forth and hissing and throwing water and sand as it worried over him, as it had a worry attack about the sunken hive, the smoke issuing from the water.

The last thing he would realize is that he could not hear this. No more did the songbirds’ melody play in his mind’s eye, no longer did the crash of waves, familiar, sooth him. No more could he hear the clack of his lusus’ claws, or the hissing breath of its voice. He could not hear himself breath, gasp, whisper ‘no….’ and he could not hear the strangled whine from Evangelion as the lusus stopped dead and gave him a look of hopeless sadness.

And then the tears fell from burnt cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is actually my entire headcanon of why one- Mantos is deaf.  
> Two- why he has the horn piercings.  
> Three- why he has so many tattoos (To cover up all the scars.  
> Four- why occasionally he still needs to wear glasses.
> 
>  
> 
> (have fun with this one ate?)


End file.
